From the Rector
The Rev. Stephen Elkins-Williams

Beginning on All Saints’ Sunday, November 3, the worship bulletins will take on a different look.

The Order of Service for the 9:00, 11:15, and 5:15 services will be presented together in one longer cream-colored tri-fold (11”x17”), which will also include the printed scripture readings for the day at the end of the leaflet. The Collect for the Day will be printed within each service. I hope that these changes will not only give us as a parish a deeper sense of unity in worship, but also allow those who ‘hear’ best through reading to follow the collect and scripture lessons, as well as give us all a copy of the scripture readings to use for reflection and prayer during the week.

Dear Friends,

You will be reading in this issue about a discernment/long-range planning process that the vestry and I are setting in motion for the Chapel of the Cross. It is a good time for us to be reflecting on and planning for our future, and I am excited that we will all have a chance to be a part of that.

I want to say a few words here about the meaning of “discernment” since it can be one of those fuzzy words that communicate many things to many people.

Spiritual discernment involves a seeking of God’s will. It assumes that God does have intentions for us and does make those intentions knowable. Since God does create us as unique individuals and call us to love God and our neighbor, there are specific ways of responding to that call to which God leads each of us. Through our gifts, through our resources, through our desires, and through our circumstances, all seen in the light of the Good News of God in Christ, we discern God’s personal call

What is true for us individually is also true for us as a parish. While the Chapel of the Cross has been responding to God’s call for 160 years, that call has been evolving as the campus, the town, the parish, and indeed the world have been changing. Psalm 104 says, “You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; and so you renew the face of the earth.” Seeing where the Spirit is working and where the Spirit is leading us is what discernment is about. It involves praying and listening as well as planning. We seek not simply to decide our own direction, but to find God’s direction.

How do we know where God’s Spirit is leading? We discern by praying and reflecting on our history, on our location, on our resources, on the changing circumstances around us, and on our communal vision, all in the light of the Gospel. As we sift through these things, we look for fruits of the Spirit: joy, peace, faith, trust, what spiritual writers traditionally call consolation. We also pay attention to the opposite: discouragement, fear, sadness, apathy, known as desolation. Those things that give us consolation confirm the leading of the Spirit. Those things that cause desolation point to the leading of the evil spirit.

Obviously honest attentiveness to God’s working in us and in each other is critical to genuine discernment. Keeping each other honest is significant, and that is a blessing of true community. Each voice is important and so is acting on what we discern and planning accordingly.

Seeking what God is calling the Chapel of the Cross to be and to do in the next decade or two is exciting and challenging. The vestry and I look forward to all of us being a part of that.

Faithfully,
- Stephen